Illinois State Association of Letter Carriers President Luis Rivas Jr. says the rally should draw public attention to the bipartisan legislation introduced in the House of Representatives, which is currently in limbo within the Committees on the Judiciary and Oversight and Accountability since March 12.
"In the last year and a half, there have been over 2,000 attacks where carriers have been robbed, held up at gunpoint, threatened and intimidated, and in some cases even shot," Rivas Jr. said in a phone interview with WVIK Friday morning. "All in the intents and purposes of taking the arrow key, which the letter carrier uses to access mailboxes."
These arrow keys allow entry to mailboxes within condominiums, banks and various businesses, where robbers take parcels and checks.
"In Chicago earlier this year a letter carrier was shot in the leg." Ravis Jr. said. "When you are victims of these crimes, letter carriers go through a traumatic phase of their life; they have a hard time coming back to work expecting something to happen to them."
Ravis Jr. mentioned the death of Aundre Cross, a letter carrier in Milwaukee, who was shot and killed by three individuals attempting to rob her in 2022. He hopes the federal legislation passes so greater punishments can be in place for those seeking to rob and harm letter carriers as the bill would fund additional postal inspectors and postal police. He says only 14% of those caught over the last year and a half have been convicted.
"I've been a letter carrier for 35 years, and I can recall when I first started, if you touched a mailman while he was working, it was automatic you were going to jail," Ravis Jr. said.
Melissa Rakestraw, a postal worker at Branch 825, which serves the suburbs around Chicago, has been a letter carrier for 28 years. She says her fellow letter carriers need
help from federal enforcement.
"I've had co-workers and members of my branch who have been assaulted on the street and robbed of their arrow keys," Rakestraw said in an interview before the press conference outside the Vibrant Arena in downtown Moline. "The postal service headquarters is not allowing the postal police to be out on the street as part of the enforcement mechanism looking out for carriers. Instead, they rather have the postal police guard the postal property while we are subjected to attacks with no help."
The main change in the proposed bill is moving away from physical keys to utilizing
the current scanners letter carriers use in their day-to-day ventures out in the community.
"Where the letter carrier can use the device to access the mailbox, and if it's stolen, it'll automatically be deactivated...you need a code, the personal barcode on the letter carrier's I.D. to access the device," Ravis Jr. said. Another idea in consideration is a key fob that can be deactivated if stolen.
President of Branch 11 Elise Foster echos the crowd, chanting enough is enough as her branch started rallying back on August 8th, 2023.
"We implemented our own texting service to help our members because no one has reached out to help," Foster said. She mentioned earlier this month, on June 11, while giving an interview, she was alerted of an attack on a letter carrier.
"I'm tired of doing interviews and being on TV for this...enough is enough," Foster said.
Another speaker, Pat Devaney, secretary-treasurer of Illinois AFL-CIO, says the 900,000 members of the Illinois AFL-CIO are standing with the letter carriers as they push for the passing of H.R.7629. Devaney mentions his position as a firefighter to recognize that many of the life-saving calls for action come from postal workers.
"The people forget is you're walking in every neighborhood, every village, across the state and across the country," Devaney said. "You're also the eyes and ears to watch what's going on in our neighborhoods."
According to Ravis Jr., the United States Postal Service has been in contract negotiations with the letter carriers for over a year, and during this time, many USPS workers are dealing with understaffing issues and long hours.
"We, of course, have to deal with the elements," Ravis Jr. said. "The weather, the heat, the humidity, the ice and the cold...with the workload we have every day."
WVIK asked Ravis Jr. about Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's Delivering for America plan, which affected Milan's processing center earlier this year.
"They closed it down, which served the Quad Cities and the surrounding communities as far as processing and distributing mail," Rivas Jr. said. "Now that mail is selected and transported to Des Moines, Iowa, which is three hours away, processed, and then brought back to the Quad Cities area. That is six hours of transportation plus whatever time it takes to process the mail; that is not effective."
Employees were reassigned as clerks or letter carriers, while others sought early retirement or resigned as reassignment could mean moving away from their community. According to Ravis Jr., politicians and USPS workers around the nation spoke out against the plan, and processing plant consolidations are now on hold. However, for Milan, the process was already completed.
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza also spoke at the rally, raising concerns about the impact DeJoy's restructuring plan will have on state services.
"Even more distressing the consolidation will most likely cause a delay in vital state payments to our home healthcare and childcare providers, to state vendors, emergency
child support and even state income tax refunds," Mendoza said. "For many, even receiving these checks one day later than expected may cause serious financial hardship."
Other speakers at the rally included IL State Representative Gregg Johnson, 72nd District; Paul Barner, executive vice president of the NALC; Matt Julian, assistant secretary-treasurer of NALC; William McNary, co-executive director of Citizen Action Illinois and Luis Guttierez, former U.S. representative of Illinois' 4th District.
Rivas Jr. says the greater community is needed to help pass this legislation.
"Contact your congressman to support the bill and also to address the issues concerning delivery services and the movement of facilities, whether it's in the Quad Cities or other parts of the country," Ravis Jr. said in a phone interview Friday morning. "The more pressure on DeJoy, the more action we can take."
As the rally ended, many letter carriers chanted in unison, "DeJoy has got to go!"
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